Problems - Admin Permissions / App Install / UAC

Hi everyone,
Here is my latest Vista woe(s). (Dell 1420, 2gbRAM, 160gb HDD, Vista Home Prem - auto update, Core2duo, AvastHome, Windows Defender, AVGAntispyware, RUBotted, Threatfire)

Some background:
I have 3 profiles on the machine. Admin which is my original Admin account (I've used it to install apps etc); Basic which is my everyday, non-admin profile that I use for just about everything; New Admin which is a new admin account I created for trouble shooting but it has the same problems that the original one has.

There are 2 basic issues (I'll use one particular instance as an example but it's not the only instance AND it's an intermittent issue - sometimes problem happens sometimes it doesn't. Ten minutes after this instance I downloaded and installed an app and it ran fine):

1. In my Basic profile I downloaded Skype and saved the file to my Public Downloads folder. I right-clicked "run as administrator" to try and install and got this error:

Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item.

I tried just clicking it to run it (without "run as administrator") and got the same error.

I did some searching on the error and found some postings elsewhere but most were very old and in WinXP instead of Vista but I tried investigating the things mentioned in those posts.

- I ran the AVG scan and removal tool for the Gaelicum.A virus - it didn't find anything.
- I checked the properties of the file and it did not say anything about coming from another computer and needing to be unblocked.
- I logged out of my Basic profile and logged into my Admin profile and all the same problems happened.
- I logged into my New Admin profile and all the same things happened.

In my New Admin profile I copied the file from the Public Downloads folder and tried pasting it into my New Admin's own Downloads folder and got this error:

Destination Folder Access Denied
You'll need to provide administrator permission to copy this file. (NOTE: This happened IN MY ADMIN PROFILE)

Click "Continue" and get this message:

User Account Control
Windows needs your permission to continue. If you started this action, continue.
File Operation
Microsoft Windows 3AD05575-8857-4850-9277-11B85BDB8E09

Click "continue" and the installer begins. It runs a while and then I get this message (the dialog box says its a message from Skype but I've gotten similar messages from other software I've tried to install):

Cannot write the installation package on the disk. Please make sue that you have the necessary disk space available.

There are 131GB available on this disk.

This is not a new problem so I can't think to associate it with any particular software change and so 'restoring' to an earlier time isn't helpful because it's not tied to any particular time that I can identify. I haven't changed hardware.

AND…the associated issue (at least I think it's associated) is that sometimes installing apps in one profile doesn't flow thru to the other profiles and I can't find any rhyme or reason to that - I've had this happen whether I install the apps while in my Admin account, while in my Basic account and using "run as administrator" to install, or whether I'm in my Admin account and using "run as administrator" EVEN THOUGH I'm IN MY ADMIN account because some apps seem to require that kind of thing.

Then the icons for that app won't show up in different profiles' start menus, I can't even search for the apps - have to sometimes dig into C:\xx…\ to find an executable to create a shortcut. Sometimes then trying to run the app (and I'm talking about something basic like maybe a PDF viewer or something like that) it says I need administrator permissions to run it.

I'm so tired of all this. Can someone please help me? I'm hoping that by giving all this info at the start it will help rule out a bunch of stuff and make it easier to zero in on the issue.

Thanks in advance.
Buck

Hello, Even though you log in as an Admin with the account you have, it has limits. This is something Vista did to protect you from yourself. In other words, you don't have full administrator priveleges. You can log on as a full admin a few different ways. One way is to simply unhide the true admin logon in a cmd. click the start menu. In the bottom search bar type cmd (don't hit enter) cmd will show in the list on top .. right click on it and click to run as administrator the command panel will open type this command exactly as it appears here.. or just copy and paste it in the cmd panel net user administrator /active:yes hit enter and it should tell you it completed successfully. close the cmd panel and log off of windows. When you log back on you should have a new Admin log on. Log on as admin and try to run your program that way. It might be a good idea to keep your regular user logon and use that for normal functioning. You might also want to create a password for the admin logon and only use that for technical purposes.

Hi and thanks for your reply.

I followed your instructions and created (and password protected) the new Admin (super admin I guess) account.

From there I WAS able to at least select the Skype install package, use "run as administrator" to open it and start the install process. However, I still came up against the error:

Cannot write the installation package on the disk. Please make sure that you have the necessary disk space available.

which as I said, is crazy since I have 130gb available on my C:\

Also, unfortunately, creating that new admin account per your instructions doesn't address the larger question of why a file I downloaded and added to the PUBLIC folder while in my Basic user profile was not able to be accessed by that Basic profile when using "run as administrator" as well as not being able to access the file when in my Admin profile, even when trying to "run as administrator".

Isn't the whole idea of Public folders to make files accessible to all other profiles?

At the very least, how can an Admin profile at any level be prevented from accessing a file in the Public folder that was added by a Basic profile? That makes no sense.

I don't believe I should have to create a super Admin account just to access files in my Public folder.

What do you think?

Thanks,
Buck

Hello? Anybody out there?

I'm having the same problem. Brand new laptop out of the box with Windows Vista Home Premium.

So it's a clean install. And only has 1 account - Admin

Can't install Skype - get same error problem

Cannot write the installation package on the disk. Please make sure that you have the necessary disk space available.

Any ideas??

Well I have no clear answers, but I'll try and provoke inspiration, for starters creating a 2nd "admin" account is a waste of time, it will have no more power than the standard account (maybe even less) it gives you to start with, to explain, even though this may be called an admin account, it is not, it is a limited user account as some would use on xp, albeit with a bit more muscle, the ACTUAL admin account is NOT active by default, but you can elevate your normal account to admin status by right clicking and selecting run as admin, but obviously that is only valid for that process.
As your probably aware installations must be done (some let you get away without though) with admin privileges, otherwise no physical change is done to the system, it will be like installing to a virtual drive which disappears at log off.
Now the folder issue sounds like it is a permissions problem, as though the folder\files had been marked as private\hidden from other users, I appreciate this sounds crazy given it's a public folder, but that is certainly what the issue appears to be on the surface, when you set up the extra account(s) do you recall selecting any option to do with making folders private ? it is the only reason that comes to mind for this happening.
You could try taking ownership of the folder, or rather making sure the folder allows permission for all to access, but I can only stumble around with such things so best I can offer here is a link to follow, hopefully it will help.

Now it is possible to activate the proper admin account, but it's not a move I'd take lightly for most people, so lets see if we can find a solution without doing this first.
The drive space I must admit is a bit confusing, are you sure you have the amount of drive space you say actually clear\available ?
Vista is a hog, and it takes 15% of the drives space for system restore etc, so I am wondering if this may be affecting that, I used to be able to reduce this to 3% but unfortunately it seems m$ have patched this so I need to find a new way to do this now, so if you can confirm the drive space it may help, TreeSize Free will help here, run it and it will list where and how much in size to help show where your files and space are.
What junk file cleaners\maintenance do you have\use ?
I recommend using Disk Cleaner and CCleaner, also add winapp2.ini to it, simply extract the file into the programs file once installed, it allows even deeper cleaning, and see what that does to help, but each find bits the other misses.

Try disabling UAC, see if that allows everything to work as it should. If yes then that is the area you need to focus on, how to get the right authority and access rights to your Administrator account. Open msconfig, click on the Tools tab, scroll down and select Disable UAP (weird, I know, why UAP instead of UAC?). Click Apply then OK. Reboot and UAC will be off. Now try the install.